The disclosed technology relates generally to media programs and, more particularly, to providing users of a media program with an opportunity to preview, purchase, and/or gain more information about merchandise related to the media program.
Increasingly, user electronic devices are becoming more multi-functional and have the capability to interact with more media formats and programs. For example, handheld/pocket PCs, cellular telephones, computers, and television sets today are capable of accessing and playing digital music and video, surfing Web content, and/or running video games. In particular, user devices and equipment are now capable of accessing media content and programs that historically have been accessed only by very particular types of devices. The proliferation of media content and programs to many different types of user devices has the potential of reaching a greater number and variety of audiences. Because media content has spawned an entire industry of media-related merchandise, the trend of greater accessibility to media content is an area of potentially greater media-related commerce.
However, despite the increasingly multi-functional nature of user devices, many types of user devices have still retained dominant functionalities that allow users to enjoy capabilities not offered by other types of devices to the same degree. For example, a cellular telephone allows a user to enjoy high fidelity person-to-person communication capabilities more than users of other types of devices. As another example, users of personal computers have the ability to enjoy stunning, high-resolution video games more than users of other types of devices. Therefore, although user devices are becoming more multi-functional, there may still be noticeable differences among the capabilities of different types of user devices.
With the potential benefit of reaching a greater audience through accessibility to media content and programming, there is also the complication of reaching users who do not have the same device/equipment capabilities. Accordingly, there is interest in developing the benefits of greater media access while addressing such complications.